Only Fools Fall In Love... (again)
by See Jane Conform
Summary: (Rating's a bit harsh, some strong language) Yamcha's fighting everything in him to not fall for her charms again, if the first time almost killed him, a second would finish him off.... (yamcha/bulma)
1. It was Great When It All Began

The product of an attempt at a story in which Yamcha gets the girl. Somewhat angsty- somewhat humorous- I'm not entirely sure where this will go. So praise me, flame me… whatever. Just let me know what you think.

__

'It was great when it all began'

It all started with a telephone call. 

Sounds harmless enough, right? But pain was the least of which it would inflict on me. 

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had never answered it. If I had just rolled over, fallen back asleep and blocked out the incessant ringing. Whatever would have followed had to have been better.

Maybe not better. Maybe just simpler. 

Still, sometimes I think I'd like to know. But I'm only deluding myself by thinking the choice was ever in my hands. 

You see, I knew it was _her_. I knew it as surely as I knew my name. When you're in that deep, you begin to develop a sort of sixth sense about these things. 

Even after I answered it, the moment I heard her voice I should have flung it far away from me. I should have unplugged the phone, pulled down the blinds, locked the door and hid under the covers of my bed until it was safe. 

Cowardly? 

Maybe… but given the choice- not that I ever was- I'd choose to lose my life over my heart again any day.

__

"You dated Bulma Briefs? What was that like? Man I'd like a piece of that action." 

I was sitting in a bar watching the game –no, that's a lie, I might as well tell it right- I was getting wasted when the subject inevitably came up. It didn't matter that I was somewhat of a celebrity myself, or that I had no desire at all to dredge up those memories. They wanted to know and I guess I sort of felt a duty to warn them, someone should anyway, like a public service announcement or something.

__

"No- no you wouldn't."

I shook my head, hoping to leave it at that but I knew they wouldn't. Maybe some masochistic part of my subconscious wanted to talk about it. Maybe I get off on the pain or something, it'd explain why I had stayed with her for so long.

__

"She's hot. I wouldn't mind getting burned by that!"

His comment was met by hollers of men old enough to be her father agreeing. I waited until it died down and was silent again before I replied. Some of her dramatics must have rubbed off on me.

__

"It's not getting burned you'd have to worry about, it's getting frost bit."

I could tell they appreciated my comment or maybe it was just my buzz.

__

"I'm telling you guys, she's a real ice queen. Cold, man, cold. If you ever see her, run the other way. Don't ever look her straight in the eyes, that's when she'll get you."

"C'mon, what's a chick going to do? Don't tell me your scared of her?"

"You should be scared- you should be quaking in your boots. This chick is lethal. She's got no emotions. She's as cold-hearted as the poor bastard she's fucking. She'll reel you in and spit you out."

"Doesn't sound too bad to me."

Two of the men high-fived and I ordered another drink.

__

"Is that what this is all about? She dumped you for someone else and now you feel scorned? Hell, we thought you were a man!"

"She didn't dump me, she cut me loose and I thank my lucky stars every day that she did. I pity the poor shmuck she captures next."

"If she was that bad, why didn't you leave her?"

"It's not that easy. Even when she was right in my face screaming at me… all I could think about was how she smelled better then any girl I've ever met…"

The conversation wasn't particularly uncommon. One of a dozen alcohol induced warnings- never sure if I was warning them or me- taken place at ungodly hours in even more godless places. It strikes me now only because of it's place in the timeline of my demise. It was exactly one week before the start. 

I was free then. Free and, well, miserable… but _I was free_.

See, the problem is that 'was' is the operative word there.

It wasn't much longer before I received the call. I don't know what prompted it, maybe she had gotten in a fight with Vegeta or maybe she was just feeling nostalgic. Whatever it was, I wasn't prepared for the hold hearing her voice still had over me. I was hooked the moment I heard her say my name in that voice she uses when she's uncertain but doesn't want to show it. I could see her chewing on her bottom lip, her free hand coming up to tug at a strand of hair. I thought if I just avoided her face to face I'd be fine, but that's kind of hard when her countenance is emblazoned behind my eyelids. I never did have much in the way of self-control when it came to her. 

"Yamcha? It's me… Bulma."

"Yeah… I know." I answered her after some time. Did she think it's possible for me to forget her voice? 

"I was just wondering how everything was going."

"Fine." I'm not wallowing in despair since you left me or anything, promise.

"How's training?"

"Good." _That's_ what I was supposed to be doing. My memory has been somewhat faulty lately, I've been forgetting the damnedest things… like oh, you know… breathing.

"I- I've missed you."

There, she said it. She had to say it. I could feel my resolve crumbling as if made out of sand. How I hated myself for the joy sweeping over me, how I loathed the automatic grin I couldn't suppress at her words. I tried to cover my elation with sarcasm.

"I can tell."

"I have." She sounded… hurt? I knew better then to believe it. She'll never understand the pain she's put me through. I refuse to feel any sympathy towards her. But she was oh so convincing. "I've missed… us."

"Oh." Stay calm, don't give in. Focus on all the pain she's put you through. You don't want to get involved with someone like her.

"Don't do this to me Yamcha. I'm sorry, all right? I made a mistake." I didn't hear anything after my name. I love hearing her say my name.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're going to make me say it? It was a mistake to break up with you. I don't know what happened. I guess I was just trying to prove that I grew up and I thought having a boyfriend was childish. And then Vegeta was there and he was so much of a man I thought being with him would prove my maturity but I was wrong. There's nothing wrong with having a boyfriend." 

"Oh."

"Yamcha?"

"What do you want me to say? Tell me what you want to hear Bulma. That its ok that you ripped my heart out but didn't think it worthy enough to keep? Is your conscience bothering you? Is that what this is about?"

"No- I just, I just wanted to talk to you."

"Fine, talk. I'm listening." 

"Not like this… look I have to go. Can I come over tomorrow? Lunch time?"

"Sure. _We'll talk_."

Without another word she hung up. The dial tone sounded in my ear but I chose not to release the phone. I wasn't quite ready to let go of it yet.

The defenses I had built up during our conversation came crashing down as I reviewed our conversation. I chose to ignore the insults and focus on the main point. 

She wanted me back. 

I did a happy dance and got tangled up in my phone cord. 

Looking down at the wires wrapped around myself was somewhat sobering, like a metaphor for what was happening. As I extracted myself from the mess, I vowed not to let myself get caught up in her trap again. We _could_ be just friends. I hoped anyway. I was staking my freedom on it. 


	2. A Grey Sky Morning

More Yamcha. Yippee. I forgot to mention the title of the first chapter is naturally a reference to RHPS "It was great when it all began… I was a regular Frankie fan." This chapter title is a throwback to Vertical Horizon. I feel the need to make you read the lyrics to song because it seems so appropriate. If you don't want to- I won't be offended- just skip over the followed italicized portion:

__

So you sailed away / Into a grey sky morning / Now I'm here to stay / Love can be so boring

Nothing's quite the same now / I just say your name now

But it's not so bad / You're only the best I ever had

You don't want me back / You're just the best I ever had

So you stole my world / Now I'm just a phony / Remembering the girl / Leaves me down and lonely 

Send it in a letter / Make yourself feel better 

But it's not so bad / You're only the best I ever had

You don't need me back / You're just the best I ever had

And it may take some time to Patch me up inside 

But I can't take it so I Run away and hide 

And I may find in time that You were always right 

You're always right 

So you sailed away / Into a grey sky morning / Now I'm here to stay / Love can be so boring

What was it you wanted / Could it be I'm haunted 

But it's not so bad / You're only the best I ever had 

I don't want you back / You're just the best I ever had / The best I ever had The best I ever

'Grey Sky Morning'

I woke up to a loud pounding on my wall. 

I couldn't understand how _anyone_ could be up at this ungodly hour, nevertheless doing _manual labor_.

My head lolled to one side enough for me to make out the numbers on my clock. 

So… maybe it wasn't such an ungodly hour. I was actually surprised that I had slept in so late. I tried to recall what had happened the night before to wear me out so. 

Thinking was starting to hurt though, and I realized with a groan that the loud and painful pounding was coming from _inside_ my head. 

I closed my eyes and tried to will the headache away. 

Vague remnants from a dream began to filter through my muddled brain. 

Something blue…

Was Bulma there? 

And ringing… an alarm clock? a phone?

I sat up quickly –a little too quickly, or so my head protested. I tried to send a death glare to the now empty bottle mocking me from its perch on my nightstand but only managed a bleary squint. 

The conversation from the previous day was coming back to me chunks at a time.

I covered my mouth as bile rose in my throat.

Chunks really wasn't the best word to use at the moment.

I managed to make it to the bathroom before I lost the contents of my stomach. 

It was almost fitting, I thought somewhat wryly, that the day I would see my blue-eyed goddess after all this time would start with my head in the toilet.

By the time I emptied my stomach and wiped my face off, I was ready to lose it again. 

I had about fifteen minutes before _she_ was to arrive. 

I looked around at the mess that was my apartment's current state and had to fight to not just blast all the junk to oblivion. I nudged an empty pizza box under my couch with one foot, and called it good enough. We weren't together anymore, she had no control over how I lived my life. Thinking a show of resistance was in order -to prove my independence- I changed into a pair of old sweats and a T-shirt that had seen better days. I wasn't going to dress up for _her_. On the same note I forwent a shower and merely splashed some cold water onto my face. I was looking forward to having her meet bachelor-me. I was debating the merits of even just going back to sleep when I heard her knock.

I don't know how anyone could infest another's being so, but she had crawled her way so deep inside of me, even her knock registered pain somewhere in my heart.

I opened the door and tried to affect a casual pose as she stepped into my home. Her eyes widened at she took in the filth and mess, then noticed the state of the _room_. I was growing more anxious by the second as she tried to reconcile the image before her with however she imagined me. I felt like screaming at her, like shouting at her all the things I'd been thinking. That _this_ was me and the clean cut neat boyfriend she knew was the imposter. That she had made me everything I ever was and how dare she look at me like I had changed. But when her eyes turned to me, and I saw the pity in them, all I felt was shame. I steeled myself for whatever she could say. I had to be strong in this. 

So naturally she says the one thing I have no defense for.

"You look the way I feel."

I couldn't meet her gaze.

"Why are you here, Bulma?" 

I tried to be blunt, and not hear the emotion in her voice.

"I told you. I wanted to talk."

She wants to talk and my life gets thrown upside down.

"Why? After all this time, why?"

"I don't know, Yamcha. Can't we still be friends?"

She had to say my name. I tried to cover up how much it unnerved me.

"Friends?"

"Yeah, friends." She stared at me, forcing me to meet her eyes. I don't know what she was looking for, but I don't think she found it. "I mean, we did care for each other, right? I don't want that to stop just because we aren't 'together' anymore." 

"We cared for each other? That's what you're calling it now? I thought we were 'in love', I thought we were 'soul mates', I thought we were supposed to be together forever." I echoed the words she had fed me through out our relationship. Maybe they had just been words. 

"I did love you, but things change…" 

"'Love is not love that alters with alteration.'" I quipped without thinking. 

Oh god. 

Did I just-? 

Maybe she won't catch it. 

"Did you just quote Shakespeare?" 

I'm such a woman. 

I looked away, denial wasn't an option but I wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of admitting it. 

"You did, you just quoted Shakespeare!" 

Something in the tone of her voice made me snap. What? So now I'm too dumb to know Shakespeare? Is that what she's trying to say? 

"Yeah, I did. You want to make something out of it?" 

"No… I was just surprised. I mean… I didn't know you-" 

"Could read? Been doing it for a while now." 

"No, I just didn't realize you were into poetry." 

"Yeah, well there's a lot you don't know about me." It was kind of exhilarating, turning the tables on her like this. For once I was the one that wasn't taking any shit. I could feel the blood pumping through my veins as I shed the role of worshiper. 

"I'm sorry Yamcha, I didn't mean-"

"You never mean. You just do. Damn the consequences because you're above all that."

"Why are you being so cruel?" She spun away from me and raced to the door, but not before I had glimpsed a tear in her eye. 

What had I done? 

All my anger fled me leaving bitter regret. 

Would every memory of her be so tinged? 

Somehow, I had to fix this.


	3. Same Old Joke And It's Not Funny

_ Wow... another chapter! And you thought I had forgotten about this one... Ok, i had... but *someone* (you know who you are) renewed my interest in it. So yell at her if it sucks..._

'Same old joke- and it's not funny'

__

Did you ever reach for the glued down penny?

Same old joke- and it's not funny.

Burns are red, bruises blue.

Out with the old. Cheated by the new.

Chumbawumba

I had an epiphany the other day. 

It wasn't the gradual crescendo of new age music, bright light, nirvana type of epiphany. It was more like some cosmic figure smacked me on the back of my head and told me if I weren't such a drunken idiot I would have figured it out sooner.

It's simple -as all revelations tend to be _after_ they reveal themselves to you- and yet it's a concept I never truly accepted until now. It's one of those facts of life you know your whole life, but until it's tested you never believe. Kind of like when someone tells you not to touch something because it's hot- but really it doesn't become hot to you _until_ you touch it. 

So here it is, my epiphany: _Life goes on- even when you don't._

I was burned a couple times before that became real, but now it is and it's not something I'm likely to forget.

It was a couple weeks out in the real world since Bulma's visit, but in my inebriated mind it was just a stretch of indefinite moment. Just one long pause punctuated by occasional trips to the liquor store a block away. 

It was on one of these trips that life decided to rear it's ugly head.

I was starting to sober- much too quickly- and I felt a sudden stab of fear. I wasn't ready for coherent thought yet. I didn't completely trust my memory of what exactly I was trying to drown, but I knew enough that it had to be painful. 

I knew one of these days I'd have to stop drinking. One of these days I'd have to stop pretending that I could hide from the world forever. One of these days I'd have to deal with the rotting infested wound I've been trying to ignore. 

__

But not today.

My head was turned to the ground, watching my feet as I hurried to get to the store. Some distant part of me registered that I was only wearing one shoe, but the importance of that fact was lost on me. A flash of blue caught my attention and I instinctively turned to seek its source. A young woman with cerulean hair was hailing a cab. The girl looked nothing like Bulma, but it was enough to penetrate the haze surrounding me. Preoccupied as I was, I didn't notice the stooped woman in front of me. I crashed into her causing her to drop the large basket she had been carrying. Some part of me still had manners and I dropped to my knees to help her. 

The scent hit me before I even realized what was spilled on the ground. 

Dozens of flashes of half forgotten memories destroyed any numbness I still clung to. 

All at once the alcohol stopped being enough. 

My rare moment of lucidity made me wonder if it ever had been, or if I had been protected only by the strength of my denial. 

I slowly reached for the long stemmed lily. I twisted it between my fingers, unable to tear my gaze from it. My eyes stung fiercely, a reaction I could for once attribute to the blossom in my hand. I had never told Bulma how severely allergic I was to her favorite flower. Maybe she would have looked at me differently if I had. Maybe she would have understood me more, if she had known the reason I always produced the bountiful bouquet with my apologies. In my own way, it had been a private penance for disappointing her. Because it was the worth the pain, _because she was worth the pain._

Times like this, confronted by such beauty, it was hard to hold on to my anger. 

My hand found the crumpled twenty that had been stowed in my pocket for booze and I stood up, tossing it to the flower vendor still picking up her scattered wares. I ignored the astonished look thrown towards me and walked away with the single dirt smudged flower. 

I changed my course that day, in more then one way. 

  


  


The scent of lilies followed me that day and into the next. It shouldn't have been a surprise when the third day found me struggling with an armful of the persistent blooms as I opened the door to her office building. 

I was clean, sober, and thinking more clearly then I had in months. Some time during my drunken binge the anger had fled me. The hurt that followed had been worse, but even that I was dealing with. She had been a part of my life for so long- I had been only fooling myself by thinking I could fill the whole she left with alcohol. I wasn't completely over her, and had no delusions into believing that I ever would be. She was my first love and my first heartbreak. 

You don't just get over hurt like that. 

I thought back to how terrified I was of girls before I had met her. Maybe I had been on to something…

I nodded my head at the receptionist but didn't pause in my mission. My body was on auto-pilot as I headed to the elevator that would take me to the floor her office was on. Despite the confrontation coming, a stupid grin made its way onto my face. How many times had I been in this same position? Only this time I was here to salvage what was left of our mangled friendship- not trying to save a romance. 

The familiarity of the situation didn't do anything to dull the sense of importance of though. If I couldn't find a way to fix it- if I couldn't find a way to still have her in my life- even as a friend, I wasn't sure I would survive… Still, despite what was riding on this conversation, I was comfortable in my element. I had taken apologizing to Bulma to new heights, I had made it an art form. Fighting may be Goku's forte, but this was mine. 

There was chime as the elevator announced my destination, I stepped out and headed purposefully to her office. Suzy, her secretary, was sitting at her desk hidden behind a pile of paperwork. 

It struck me how some things never change.

I didn't bother doing more then throwing her a grin before knocking on Bulma's door, the bouquet hidden behind my back, the rash it caused hidden behind a long sleeved shirt. My smile froze as a graying man opened the door.

"Who are you?" Maybe it wasn't the smoothest thing to say, but it was all my mind could spit out at the time. The man seemed puzzled, but offered me a kind smile and his hand just the same.

"Dick Johnson, CEO of Capsule Corporation."

I shook his hand as my mind tried to process the new information. 

"That's Bulma's job." A million horrifying possibilities raced through my mind, "What happened to her? Where is she?"

"There is nothing to worry about. Ms. Briefs is quite well. She's on maternity leave-"

The flowers met their final resting place in the waste basket.

Some things never change, huh?

__

Life goes on, even when you don't.

  


  


  


  



End file.
